This is great and i don't think it will affect retail stores much. You have to consider game size vs download time vs hdd space, not like you can get every game digitally.

Plus if you purchase a digital copy, you can't re-sell it so you may save money up front, but you can't make any back either. So it works either way you go. The only way this might hurt people like myself in Australia, is if you purchase a game from say Amazon, which means more than likely it's the US version, hopefully it won't require a US account to actually activate. The games aren't region coded, but DLC and digital content always has been.